Earth Husbands, chapter 20 (Patreon)

Max took a deep breath. If this was his only chance to speak, he needed to make it count, so he had to suppress the urge to run in a circle and scream in frustration. That wouldn’t exactly disprove the theory that he was a moron.

“I came up with the concept for that weapon, and I had every right to sell it,” Max said as calmly as possible. These people liked facts, so that’s what he had to focus on. And he would apologize to James later for not giving him co-credit. “Dee would be able to do that math, only she has been isolated and afraid for so long that she probably can’t think straight. And that would be the fault of the so-called smart individuals on that police ship.  We were both on that ship, but instead of letting us see each other, the assholes on that ship kept up separated and confused.”

Max took another calming breath. He was not doing well at remaining factual. It didn’t help that he could see the stress in Dee’s eyes. In SERE training they said that nothing was more damaging than being alone. A person could handle broken bones better than systematic isolation. But these aliens wouldn’t understand profanity, and if the translator was being too literal, Max’s point would get lost under the verbal garbage.

“My people dislike most bodily fluids, and we have a special hatred for excrement. So when we find an individual as dislikable as excrement, we call them an asshole. The association of the body part with that particular bodily discharge makes our feelings known.” Max had grown disturbingly good at that sort of explanation. Being a father had contributed to his new skills as much as the alien kidnapping. The kids did ask the strangest questions.

Back to his argument. “The people on the ship were assholes because they isolated us and didn’t give us a chance to mentally recover from the shock.” Max looked at the closest Chosen alien. “Like some other species, many on my planet believed we were alone in the universe, that we were chosen by a deity to be unique. Others believed there was life in the universe, but could not prove it because our part of the galaxy was so quiet. So seeing alien ships was a shock.” That was an understatement. “And those assholes saw shock and took it as proof that humans are morons. That sort of assumption makes the rest of you look like morons.”

Max debated sitting. He had made his argument. However, he hadn’t addressed the one part of his con that had actually outed him—that navigation program. Maybe he could convince these aliens that they had judged humans too quickly, but they’d had plenty of time to decide they didn’t like the Hidden ones. So this part likely wouldn’t end well. That deeply ingrained hatred was going to make these guys assume that anyone who loved a Hidden one had to be a moron.

Looking at Rick sitting near the judge, his tentacles all curled, Max couldn’t deny him. Not even by avoiding any mention of him.

“And I have a right to sell the navigation program. I didn’t write it. I don’t even understand it, and Rick’s attempts to explain do not help. But Rick is my husband. What is mine is his and what is his is mine. That makes it mine to sell.” That caused such a stir among the gathered aliens that Max was distracted. Tentacles undulated, feet shifted, mutters filled the room. On his bench up front, Rick uncurled a couple of his larger tentacles. Max had hit a nerve.

Max had more points to make; however, by the time he thought about making them, the judge’s platform had started to rotate, and he was no longer facing Max. With a sigh, Max sat back down. Damn it. 

No one else stood to speak, and the judge rotated nearly all the way around until he faced Max’s family. Then Rick stood. He was short, his walking tentacle curled more than it had been at any time since the pirate invasion.

“I hired Max believing he was moron species and would make a sufficient carrier of young.” His tentacles curled more, either because he felt guilty or because he knew how the rest of the universe judged his reproductive methods. Either way, Max wished he was standing down there, his arm tangled with some of those curly fry tentacles.

“He said he was warrior, and I believed he lacked an understanding of the meaning of the word. When I was a moron, I allowed Hunters on my ship. They tried to kill offspring, and Max killed many of them. He had no weapon so he used a maintenance hook to rip out internal organs. Then I knew he was warrior. I offered to return him to a place of safety, and he said he found me desirable. I find him desirable. We name each other husband. He can spend my money. He can claim my work.”

That caused even more tentacle twitching, and this time the mutters rose to chatter, and when half the aliens sounded like cats in heat or tone-deaf opera singers, it made for a pretty cacophonous courtroom. 

The judge stood, and Max expected the room to go silent. Instead the room transformed in the blink of an eye into a cocktail party sans drinks. Carrington stood talking to two Chosen ones while Xena headed for the exit. A small crowd had gathered around Bundy, and since he was short, he vanished under the moving wall of tentacles and backs.

What the fuck was going on? Max touched the screen, willing a barrel shaped alien to move aside so Max could get one last look at his family. At Rick. Despite every instinct that told Rick to hide, he was here. He had spoken up and defended Max the best he could. Max had thought he couldn’t love Rick more, but he did.

He pressed his palm against the screen as Rick and Kohei pushed through the crowd and started up the long aisle. Aliens were wandering out now, and Rick moved faster. Max prayed for each second the video continued, for each moment he could bask in Rick’s presence. He was beautiful, flowing past aliens and gliding over a bench to avoid a milling group of gossipers who hadn’t moved out of his way. He was strong and so damn smart. He didn’t need to have boned leg tentacles or a neck to be perfect.

Max pressed his body against the screen, and a vibration ran through the metal. Half afraid of some security measure, Max stepped back. The wall then slid up like a garage door so the camera image of the hearing was projected on the ceiling. Max could see into the courtroom and see Rick charging at him, tentacles waving and his tool hat flopping as it started to slide backward.

Still too stunned to move, Max was knocked backward onto the bench and then tentacles were all over him. All over. 

“Hey, kids in the room,” Max said. They had agreed that naughty touching would not happen in front of the children, and Rick was violating that in spectacular fashion. For a second, Rick froze. The tip of a tentacle pressed against Max’s hole, and most of Rick’s tentacles were under Max’s clothing. With a breathy raspberry that came very close to a sigh, Rick withdrew most of his tentacles. He did leave one under Max’s shirt curled around his nipple and a few around Max’s waist, but that was almost not inappropriate.

Kohei blew raspberries and stood where Max’s cell joined the courtroom. “What happened? Did we win?” Max asked.

Rick bellowed. “Query. Win what?” There were so many things Max wanted to win. His freedom would be high on the list, as would a guarantee that his family would keep their ship.

Kohei answered before Max could figure out which question to ask first. “Max Father, this was evidentiary hearing. There was no winning. But now the authorities have questions on evidence of husbanding.” 

All the air went out of Max’s lungs and his thoughts scattered. Rick tightened his tentacles, and Max managed a weak, “That wasn’t a trial?”

Both Kohei and Rick stared at him.

“Query,” Max added belatedly.

Kohei blew bubbles.

Rick was a little more sympathetic. “If authorities accuse you of wrong doing, a judgment or liability takes many, many months. On Earth television, trials move slow. They keep going and going and going.” Rick and his love of commercials.

“This looked like a courtroom. I thought…” Max closed his eyes.

“Max Father, I am sorries for not explaining,” Kohei said now that he had finished laughing at Max. “Rational creatures cannot judge so fast.”

“Sentient and rational are not the same,” Max said. He noticed that neither of them disagreed with him. “So, did the hearing go our way?”

“Authority believes Max is not moron species. Navigation program is not sold,” Rick said. More and more aliens were leaving the courtroom… or evidentiary hearing room. 

“Where’s Dee?” Max asked.

“Other room. Same hearing.” Kohei gestured toward one of the two sides Max couldn’t see from his current position.

“We should go find her.” 

Dee hadn’t known that Carrington was using her. If the universe was just, Carrington was going to have to pay a fine or at the very least, look like an idiot. Bitch. Max realized both his family members were watching him. Rick was motionless, and Kohei was slowly rotating in confusion. Max stood, or at least he tried to. Rick was heavy. He lifted Rick an inch and then they collapsed back down onto the bunk.

Rick started to untangle his tentacles.

Max tried to find the words that would allow him to explain why he worried about Dee. From their point of view, it didn’t make sense, but he didn’t want his family to blame her for any of this mess. “She warned me and tried to get me out before the guards showed up.”

“How would leaving Carrington’s ship have made improved evidence?” Kohei asked seriously. 

Well, shit. Kohei had a valid point. Max was in the middle of a con, so whether the authorities caught him there or later, it didn’t matter. Eventually they would have found him outside the ship, with or without Dee’s warning. Hiding wouldn’t have improved their legal position, but Max had an instinct to run for home. Max stood and tightened his hold Rick’s tentacle. “Let’s go see if she is alright.”

Rick didn’t say anything, but he did start toward the main room. His tentacles didn’t even curl much. Most of the aliens were gone now. Bundy and his entourage hovered near the exit, but everyone else was gone. The judge came off the table once Max stepped into the main room.

The judge shouted. “We will discuss questions of husbanding.” The high-tone cut through Max’s head.

“I need to check on Dee,” Max said firmly.

“I’m here.” Dee came out of the cell that was opposite the exit. A few of the aliens around Bundy turned to look at them, but then Bundy left and his entourage followed. Dee walked over, stopping several feet away. “I’m fine.”

The judge came striding up the aisle with a rolling gait that almost looked human. Funny, but the two-legged walk looked strange after months of watching Rick and the kids glide about on their walking tentacles. The judge trumpeted. “I require clarification.” And here the rest of the universe complained about Rick’s people being too loud. Pot and kettle. Pot and high-pitched, annoying kettle.

“About husbanding. Right. Okay, ask away.” Maybe relief was making Max a little punch drunk because that was not the way to address a judge, not even an alien one. The Chosen one judge pushed his lips forward so that line of nostrils all opened into teardrop shapes. After a second, the face relaxed again.

“I require clarification of human social structure. Are humans required of groups?”

The business translator made language a lot clearer, but the judge had a stilted, wrong quality to his language, even with the improved translation.

Max answered. “Humans do require some sort of social connections. Sometimes they live in isolation, but usually they will have one person they pair bond with or one family member. People who live completely isolated usually end up odd.”

Dee snorted. “They end up insane,” she corrected him. “It damages their brains.” She tapped the side of her head. Given that Dee had been the one abandoned on the planet, Max had avoided saying that. Dee shook her head. “I should have been able to follow his math on those weapons modifications. I have the same background. But I couldn’t. But that’s not evidence that Max didn’t do the work. We were both working on a translation interface, but Max got ten times farther than I did in the same time. And the longer I was alone, the worse my productivity got.”

The judge looked from Dee to Max. “Both humans were isolated.”

“No,” Dee said. She smiled at Max and then she gave Rick a fond look. “Max had a husband and children. He is a lucky man.”

Max pulled Rick closer. “I am.”

“Gregariousness can include species not human?” the judge asked. “Odd.”

“Humans are odd,”Kohei oh-so-helpfully added. The judge ignored him.

“Why did you not seek gregarious group?” the judge asked Dee.

“Because no one would talk to me,” she said. “I tried to get to know a few of the people who lived in the same area, but they ignored me.”

Max remembered how much it had hurt when he had thought Rick’s friendship wasn’t real. The sense of loss and the loneliness had nearly eaten him alive. A day of that had nearly broken him. She’d been alone the whole time. “God, Dee, I’m so sorry.” 

She shrugged. “It’s not like you abandoned me. Hell, I walked away from you to take the job with Carrington because I believed all that shit about Hidden ones being parasites. The last I checked, parasites don’t risk coming to court to defend their families. Rick, I’m sorry I listened to these assholes.”

Rick loosened his hold of Max’s arm enough to rotate.

Dee continued while Rick was still rotating back and forth. “I should turn in my POC card. I mean, I know what it’s like to have people judge me because of the color of my skin, and I go making assumptions about other people because of where they have their eyes. I am a horrible human being.”

Max hated the disgust he heard in her voice. She was a damn good pilot and a good person. Some of the guys from the unit—Max wouldn’t want to spent time with them. But Dee was kind and quiet and she would laugh with people without laughing at them. “I probably would have believed what people told me if the translator had worked well enough for my social worker to say anything other than Rick’s people were loud and unpopular,” Max told her. But he didn’t want to go farther into the topic of discrimination in front of a judge. This might not be a trial, but important decision still had to get made. 

He turned to the judge. “Can I sell the navigation program or not?” Maybe his con had backfired a bit, but he still wanted to make enough profit to get upgrades for the ship. He was going to have to do a lot of security audits and new weapon designs to get the credits they needed if he couldn’t sell Rick’s programming.

They could go back to Hidden planet and sell it under the official terms of the sanction agreement, but Max was vindictive enough that he didn’t want these people to get access to the technology unless they were willing to pay a fair price. Cutting off one’s nose despite one’s face was a valid hobby on Earth, one that Max endorsed. 

“We must discuss husbanding with Ugly one,” the judge said. He turned around and walked back toward the table in the center of the room. Asshole. Kohei followed the judge, and Rick tugged at Max to do the same. Maybe the evidentiary hearing wasn’t over. Max took a deep breath. If his ability to make a living depended on the alien understanding of husbanding, he knew one thing. He wouldn’t deny Rick. Maybe they had never stood in front of an altar in a church, but in Max’s heart, they were married. Nothing would change that. 

And if this asshole called Rick ugly again, Max would take it out on the judge’s legs, and since he had kneecaps, Max knew exactly where to kick him.